Susan Goethel Campbell

A light-skinned adult woman with shoulder length blond hair. She wears a paint covered apron and stands behind a tablle covered in art supplies, incluidng brushes and photographs. She smiles slightly, her hands posed as if they were about to begin creating.

Photo courtesy of the artist

Born in 1956

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Campbell developed her passion for art from her mother, who appreciated ink on paper, and from her father, a paper salesman who sold unusual papers to commercial printers. As an undergraduate at Alma College in Michigan, Campbell apprenticed with Kent Kirby, founder of Light-print Press, which was devoted to the revival of collotype, a continuous-tone photographic print process. Campbell frequently uses photomechanical processes to create her artist’s books.

Campbell’s work has long focused on the aesthetics of nature, industry, and technology. The notion of human progress as seen in the alteration of land and sky continue to fuel her work.

She earned her MFA in printmaking from Cranbrook Academy of Art and teaches printmaking and studio art at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.

Artist Details

  • Name

    Susan Goethel Campbell

  • Birth

    Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1956

Works by Susan Goethel Campbell

  • After the Deluge: The Post-Ark Report

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    An open book shows a drawing of a crow in profile with beak partially open on the viewer's right side. On the viewer's left, the words, "Suburban crows research people their behavior brought a chorus screaming branches fly down for weeks or even a year" display on four staggered lines.

    Susan Goethel Campbell, After the Deluge: The Post-Ark Report, 2002; Photoetching with aquatint and chine colle, 14 x 11 x 1 in.; NMWA, Museum Purchase; © Susan Goethel Campbell

  • Rim

    Suburban sprawl, population density, and the loss of undeveloped land are topics that inspired Susan Goethel Campbell’s Rim.

    Starting at the edge of the city of Detroit and progressing outward 12 miles, the artist asked residents to respond anonymously to a survey about where they lived and what they liked about it. She then transferred the residents’ responses to magnetic sheets...

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    Twelve metal sheets overlap to form an incomplete circle. The missing section displays the letters "RIM" and is located inside the circle facing out. A rural landscape painting and text cover the interior of the circle.

    Susan Goethel Campbell, Rim, 2000; Mixed media on magnetic sheeting, 3 x 8 x 2 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum Purchase; © Susan Goethel Campbell